Shattered Soul

by Angela Verdenius

  ::No. There are two more warriors in the darkness who will fight by your side, but one in particular will be with you.::

  A chill struck Rani. ::Not Ceri. Please tell me Ceri is not damned as well.::

  ::Ceri is alive and well.:: The woman seemed to be looking a vast distance, her eyes a glitter of falling stars that scattered across the black surface. She breathed deep and then blinked, refocusing on Rani. ::Your sister has her own path and she will follow it.

  ::I want to see Ceri. Be with her. Where is she?::

  The woman looked deeply into Rani’s eyes. ::She is on her way home.::

  ::I want to go with her.::

  ::You can’t, child. For Ceri to be with you would mean certain death for her. She has her own path and it’s not beside you.::

  ::I don’t want this path!::

  ::That choice was taken from you. I know you want your sister, but would you have her die just to be by her side?::

  Rani swallowed, feeling the lump in her throat, seeing the truth in the black eyes that captured her gaze so steadily and hid nothing. ::No.::

  The woman smiled gently.

  ::So I’ll never see my sister again?::

  ::You can’t.::

  The truth in this strange, yet beautiful and peaceful place, cut to the bone.

  The woman laid her hand on Rani’s forehead. ::Your sister is safe, she is going home. To keep her safe, to keep all those you love safe, you have to accept and walk this path that has been forced onto you.::

  For her sister, Rani would do anything, even if it meant breaking her own heart.

  The woman lowered her hand. :: Your path, Rani, is fraught with peril. But the dark mystic chose well. You will fight for the cause because the darkness cannot be allowed out of control. You stand between total chaos that will flare across the universe, and the control that will keep it bound.::

  ::How?::

  ::You will get your answers. Now it is time to go.:: She stood up, again drawing Rani with her. ::Know this, Rani of the Reekas. You will never be alone. When your own hours are darkest, there will be a light inside you. Turn to it, use it, be a part of it.::

  ::You said I didn’t have light.::

  The woman smiled. ::Your light is something that can never be taken from you. You will find it when you need it the most.::

  They stood by the fountain, and Rani was suddenly floating, slipping through layers of white nothingness. Slipping away, further and further.

  ::Waitand0">:!:: She cried out. ::Who are you? Will I see you again?::

  But it was too late, the white nothingness blocking her vision -

  - and then she was there, kneeling on one knee, the fire hot before her, and the rancid smell of decay in her nostrils. She tipped her head back slowly and looked directly up into the shadowed hood of the dark mystic.

  The one who had pulled her back from the light, who had left demons’ marks on her, had chosen for her a burden.

  She pushed to her feet in one slow, smooth motion. “My name,” she said in a husky voice, “is Rani. And I know what you did.” And she thrust the dark mystic’s dagger straight into his stomach.

  He let loose a cry of pain and surprise, and she’d looked down into a ravaged face that could have crawled up from the grave.

  ~*~

  It was a shame she couldn’t kill the abomination, Rani thought as she washed thoroughly, welcoming the water that beat down upon her head. Filth sluiced down the drain and with it went every dream she’d ever had. Thanks to Phemar.

  It was too late now. She knew it. No longer running wild through insanity, she could nevertheless almost feel her soul, feel the shattered pieces drawn together with something pink and violet, fragile ties that bound as strong as chains. It twined through her soul, mending her. The cracks were filled with soft violet and shot through with pale pink.

  She couldn’t feel the little sparks of white light, because there were none. The darkness was hers, but she knew as surely as if she’d been told that she wasn’t completely in the dark... if she could only find her own light.

  Twisting off the tap she stepped from the shower and dried herself. She’d spent several hours just staring out the window with the wind in her hair and the rain on her face. She’d cried silently, and then the tears had dried and she was faced with the future. Bleak as Hell and uncertain.

  Rani had spent a long time going through everything that had happened, but she didn’t fall apart. She’d had quite a few days of falling apart and going wild, and now she was sane. Sane and on a path fraught with danger, apparently.

  Well, she’d see what that danger was and decide if she was going to tread it.

  Of course you’re going to tread it. What choice do you have left?

  She’d have to think about that. Some weird things had happened but she’d had time to clear her head and now she wasn’t so certain about what she was going to do. Yet there was an annoying little certainty that she’d come home.

  Home.

  Goddamn it. And yes, it was God damned.

  Walking through into the huge wardrobe coming off the bathroom, she looked at the outfits hanging up. Someone had been planning for her ‘homecoming’. There was a mixture of the Reeka clothes hanging up, sleeveless vests and split skirts, and a rack to the side held several boots like she’d been wearing. On a flat bench were lined up seven pairs of gloves. She lifted one up. Yes, it was the fingerless, metal-lined gloves the Reekas wore when fighting. Underwear lay in a drawer. Several long, wispy gowns made of some kind of silk hung to one side, and several different delicate sandals stood beneath them.

  How sweet. Glamour wear in a fortress of Hell.

  Pulline w="+0">Pg out panties, a sleeveless vest and split skirt, Rani dressed quickly, yanking on a pair of boots to finish before sliding the silver handled dagger into the back of her waistband. Going back into the bathroom, she dragged a comb through her hair and braided it into a thick braid that hung down her back to her waist.

  Maybe she’d cut her hair to go with her zany new lifestyle.

  Pulling on a pair of gloves, she moved back out into the bedchamber and with a shrug crossed to the door. Might as well go and see what surprises were in store for her.

  Jerking the door open, she stopped and watched the lean figure sitting in a tilted-back chair tip it forward and stand up.

  Fredrico, that was his name. Half a head shorter than herself, which made him tall for a man. He had a lean, handsome face, ruthless blue eyes and shoulder length, blonde hair neatly secured at his nape. His billowing-sleeved shirt was secured at each wrist and tucked into black pants that hugged his legs, and when he moved she saw the play of muscle pulling against the material. He had power in the lean lines of his body. A laser was holstered low on each thigh within hands reach and a dagger was sheathed at his waist.

  “My, my,” Rani drawled. “A space pirate in a fortress. Should I be afraid that you’ll ravish me?”

  For a few seconds he studied her intently before drawling back, “Maybe I’m more afraid that you’ll do it to me.”

  “I pick my conquests. You’re not it.”

  “You never know. You just might come to like me.”

  She looked coldly at him. “I doubt it.”

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  “You don’t say.” She looked up at the stone above where orange symbols glowed. “Like that?”

  Instead of answering, Fredrico offered his arm. “The Overlord awaits us.”

  Did he truly think she’d take his arm? Giving him a disgusted look, Rani said, “Lead the way.”

  He didn’t take offense but silently walked up the corridor with her by his side. This time she took note of where they were going, studying the rich details of the corridor. They came to some stairs, wide and deep and with a thin red carpet running down it, and she matched him step for step as they descended. They passed another floor, this one done in rich blues and silver, but then the next floor was a stark contrast, cold stone
floors and walls with very little to break the cold grey.

  Screams echoed up from below and sobbing came from down the corridor. Someone wailed and someone else laughed. The smell of blood was suddenly in the air and she looked at Fredrico.

  He didn’t seem to notice, his gaze forward, his back straight, his stride unfaltering.

  Senses on the alert, Rani continued in silence. The screams sounded loud and desperate as the sound of baying hounds suddenly rent the air, and then the baying turned to growling and snarling, and the screams were unearthly.

  It sounded like someone was being torn apart by a pack of hounds. A cold feeling crept through Rani at the realization that it probably was someone being torn apart. She’d heard tales of The Overlord’s methods of discipline and punishment.

  The Overlord. Her breath caught as something clicked into place inside her memory. She’d heard whispers in the Outlaw Sector about him but had never paid any attention. He was like the cawas lik bogeyman, something the outlaws and space pirates whispered about, someone the mercenaries told stories of, but not actually seen by anyone on the outskirts of the Outlaw Sector.

  The Overlord was very real.

  Shit, she was in the fortress of The Overlord.

  In the employ of the most feared person in the Outlaw Sector.

  Her day - life? - had just taken a very twisted turn.

  “Rani?” Fredrico stopped on a step just below her and looked up.

  “Nothing.” She gestured to him and continued to walk down the stairs.

  Oddly, she wasn’t panicking. Why wasn’t she panicking? Oh yeah, that was right... she’d been plucked from the dead, ripped back to life, driven insane and been the guest of The Overlord while it was being done. Fancy forgetting that.

  And maybe the little fact of what she’d been through had made surprises a thing of the past. She wondered what else might be a thing of the past.

  Fredrico turned off the stairs at the bottom and they walked down a dark corridor. At the end was subdued lighting and as they got closer she could see the curtain blocking the view.

  Fredrico swept it aside and waited for her to enter.

  Rani stepped into a chamber with another curtain on the other side. From that other side sounded raucous laughter and another shrill scream. The smell of food assaulted her nostrils and she saw that a small table was loaded with platters of hot meat, vegetables, fruit and goblets of ale.

  At the small table sat The Overlord in his throne. In one milky white hand he held a chain tethering a naked woman. Pretty, young, she fawned at his feet, rubbing against his clothes before leaning against his throne and closing her eyes in pleasure as his other hand patted her head.

  Sitting at the other end of the table was the ebony pirate, Veknor. Dark, well-built, he was handsome and just as expressionless as Fredrico. He looked at her steadily before his gaze went to Fredrico.

  The Overlord’s pupils dilated in his pink eyes when he saw her and he smiled thinly. “Welcome, Rani. Sit and eat. We have much to talk about.”

  There were two other chairs only, so she sat at the one with her back to the curtain they’d just come through. It certainly didn’t suit that she didn’t have her back to the wall, but she had no idea what was beyond the other curtain except for a lot of people.

  Behind her in the depths of the fortress were unearthly beings.

  Well, hell, why worry either way? Reaching out, she picked up a goblet and filled it with water from a jug in the middle of the table. The Overlord wasn’t about to kill her right now, and if what she’d been told was true, she had a job to do.

  Things were getting weirder and weirder, but even more weird was the fact that she was accepting of it all. Maybe she was still insane and this was all a dream.

  Lifting the goblet to her lips, she took a cautious sip. It was water, fresh and cold, and she drained the goblet in several long swallows. When she lowered it, she found herself looking directly at Fredrico, who had taken the other chair opposite her and was eating grapes slowly.

  The Overlord stroked the head of the young woman but his pink-eyed gaze was fastened on Rani. “Your chambers are to your liking?”

  She shrugg on">She sed. “Does it really matter?”

  “I want your stay here to be happy.”

  Was he joking? Rani arched a brow at him.

  His eyes didn’t flicker. “Eat.”

  Folding her arms on the table, she looked directly at him. “Tell me why I’m here.”

  “No play at niceties. I admire that.” His pupils slitted and a change came over him. Nothing naked to the eye, but discernable in the air.

  Fredrico didn’t pause in his slow chewing of a grape, but his gaze slid from The Overlord to Rani and back.

  “First and foremost, warrior, you are now under my command.” The Overlord’s voice suddenly seemed to hiss out. “You were brought back from the dead for a job.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “Beulah.” He stared at her for several seconds, before asking coldly, “Did she tell you the chore?”

  “I’d rather you did.” This might be the dreaded legend, but Rani wasn’t going to back down. Her mother had always said she had more stubbornness than brains.

  Abruptly, The Overlord jerked the naked woman to her feet and barked a command. From behind a curtain a woman appeared, her head bowed. She took the chain from his hand and led the mewling naked woman away. The curtain remained open as Phemar entered.

  Rani eyed him narrowly. His dried blood still stained his tattered robes but he walked as though unaffected. No surprise there. Somehow she doubted the walking corpse’s arm would have remained broken. Worse luck. His hooded head turned briefly in her direction before Phemar took a stand behind The Overlord’s throne.

  “What I tell you,” The Overlord said, “is for our ears only.”

  “We’re behind curtains,” she replied. “Anyone can hear.”

  “No one will hear,” Phemar replied wetly, lifting his hand.

  The sound of raucous laughter and screams faded and it was though the occupants of the chamber were in a cocoon. Maybe they were. Rani wouldn’t be surprised at anything in this cursed place.

  “I control the Inner Sanctum of the Outlaw Sector,” The Overlord stated. “My word is law. Those who dwell here and close by are those wanted so badly by the law and other outlaws and space pirates that they daren’t go further afield. I protect them. I provide their entertainment. I control them.”

  “Control them?” Rani regarded him steadily.

  “Control them,” he affirmed. “If I don’t rule here, what do you think would happen?”

  “They’d do their own thing.”

  “They’d run wild. They will slaughter all in their paths, they will fight for supremacy. Those who dwell in the Inner Sanctum have no mercy for anyone. It’s my rule that keeps a semblance of civility here.” The Overlord stroked the gold head of the sceptre he drew onto his lap. “It is not an easy job.”

  “But one you have taken on,” Rani said bluntly. “How noble.”

  Obviously it wasn’t a good thing to say, because Fredrico stopped eating and Veknor set his goblet down on the table. Tension was palpable from them both.

  The Overlord’s breath hissed in as he looked at Rani. “Do not think me a fool, warrior.”

  “I don’t.ed.I don”

  “Do not think you have seen everything there is to see in the Outlaw Sector.”

  “I’ve seen much,” she returned, even as a little voice inside her head warned her that it would be wiser to stay silent.

  “You haven’t seen it all. You haven’t seen all there is to see in my fortress.”

  “I’ve seen demons, shadows that move of their own accord and,” she slid her gaze to Phemar, “a walking, talking, rotting corpse.”

  Phemar’s laugh bubbled out moistly and a little spatter of blood from the depths of his hood landed on the table by a haunch of half raw meat.

  Rani inwardly shudd
ered.

  “You’ve seen much but you still haven’t seen what we call entertainment in my fortress.” The Overlord’s milk-white hand gripped the sceptre tighter. “You can guess at the scum who dwell in my fortress, the scum you will walk-by-side with, but you don’t know them. It is time you have a peek.”

  The curtain on the other side swished open at the same instant the light went out in the little dining chamber. Startled, Rani looked around and found herself looking down into a nightmare scene.

  They weren’t in a small dining chamber, but up on a dais. Steep, wide stairs went down to a huge, shadowy chamber below. Long tables were set in the middle, groaning under huge platters of food. Around the walls were huge sofas and chairs. Hounds scrambled for food, barking and snapping at each other. People sat eating sedately, talking quietly. Laughter rose here and there. It would have looked almost normal, except for other things.

  On the sofas people openly copulated. Twos, threes, groups. Orgies. Grunts, screams and groans. Some struggled, some laughed. The sound of crying and someone begging, only Rani wasn’t sure if it was for mercy or more.

  High above the tables, suspended from chains by their feet, hung four bodies. Two were gutted, their intestines lying in heaps upon the food on one table. Hounds jumped up, sending the plates scattering as they fought over the intestines, ripping the flesh before running off in yipping pairs as someone threw something at them.

  Two of the bodies were alive. She saw their faces as they turned slowly, the huge fires set in the walls halfway down the huge chamber picking out their features. One was crying, begging for mercy as he swung naked. His skin had been cut in so many places that his body was red with blood and it dripped from his fingertips to land in the food below him on the table.

  The people sitting under him laughed, disregarding the blood and continuing to eat.

  Rani felt her gorge rise but swallowed it down as she looked around, the nightmare images imprinting on her brain.

  The fourth person was a woman. Her breasts had been cut off, but she was still alive, and Rani saw why when she glimpsed the black flesh as she swung above the table. Someone had cauterized the wounds when they’d cut the breasts off. The woman’s face was red from the blood rushing to her head, her eyes bugled, but she was alive. From her mouth issued little whimpers.